Fibre optic computers?

[Swedge]

Just started thinking, if all the speed driven components in the computer communicated with each other through fibre optics would that work and make things faster? Such as ram, gpu and cpu. Would there be any benefit? What if fibre optics were integrated into the circuitry of individual components to make them faster in general?

[Lingering]

Yes it would help, they have been working on it for years but with all things its not a simple as it sounds.

[harrynowl]

I think copper can achieve fibre speeds just not at distance.

[DigitalHermit]

Won't there be latency issues due converting the electrical signal to an optical signal and back again?

 

Even if we're going full optical with the data-carrying channels, there's no way to process the data in their raw optical state...

[kwljunky]

Won't there be latency issues due converting the electrical signal to an optical signal and back again?

 

Even if we're going full optical with the data-carrying channels, there's no way to process the data in their raw optical state...

yet..

 

[Lingering]

Won't there be latency issues due converting the electrical signal to an optical signal and back again?

 

Even if we're going full optical with the data-carrying channels, there's no way to process the data in their raw optical state...

 

Yea exactly the issue its alot of signal switching, you would have to make whole sections optic.